Climate Change Deaths

[Paradoxum]

If people die from our purposeful lack of action on climate change, are we at least slightly morally responsible of murder for thousands?

If someone drowns in front of you, and you purposely don't minimally help them, isn't their death your fault?

I wonder if we will be seen as morally responsible as slave owning societies.

If so, how much are we expect to do, morally?

 

[MehGuy]

Feels pretty good.

 

[Paradoxum]

Feels pretty good.

What?

 

[nebulaJP]

If people die from our purposeful lack of action on climate change, are we at least slightly morally responsible of murder for thousands?

If someone drowns in front of you, and you purposely don't minimally help them, isn't their death your fault?

I wonder if we will be seen as morally responsible as slave owning societies.

If so, how much are we expect to do, morally?

Yes, we are responsible for their deaths. Also, the most effective thing that most people can do to combat climate change is become vegan because livestock farming is the leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions.

 

[Shard]

Ugh tumblr is leaking again.

One its not like climate change is going to kill anyone any time or fast enough that there wont be fair warnings before you would drown. I mean seriously, go enjoy your life. Why is everyone so desperate to stop climate change yet as a country we cant even provide for our vets? Like priorities, seriously.

 

[Dave-W]

If they are serious about stopping deaths - then de-populate the flood planes. NOLA should have been moved - at least the lower 9th ward - after Katrina.

Climate and environmental factors ALWAYS change. Rivers meander. Earthquakes re-write the landscape. Erosion happens.

We should never be so tied in to the status quo that a small (or great) change will be fatal to us.

 

[grasping the after wind]

If you believe that you can do something to change the climate and you believe that your actions will save lives by all means feel morally responsible for deaths that you believe will happen when you do not act.

 

[Radicchio]

Ugh tumblr is leaking again.

One its not like climate change is going to kill anyone any time or fast enough that there wont be fair warnings before you would drown. I mean seriously, go enjoy your life. Why is everyone so desperate to stop climate change yet as a country we cant even provide for our vets? Like priorities, seriously.

Many focus on the issue of climate change because they do not want to wait until it is too late. This seems to be our problem we ignore the warnings and wait until substantial damage has been done. No it may not significantly impact this generation, but what about generations to come? Will it be too late for them? And yes we need to provide better car for our Vets.

 

[AtWhatCost]

If people die from our purposeful lack of action on climate change, are we at least slightly morally responsible of murder for thousands?

If someone drowns in front of you, and you purposely don't minimally help them, isn't their death your fault?

I wonder if we will be seen as morally responsible as slave owning societies.

If so, how much are we expect to do, morally?

Someone did drown today. Is that your fault? Same random logic.

I do believe the climate is changing. It always does.

I'm 59 years old. Since I've been alive, people have been told we're headed into a mini ice age twice and we're heading the other way three times. It's kind of like the ever-changing "The world is ending on (Insert whatever date you want here.)" After a while, it's just amusing.

 

[Radicchio]

Someone did drown today. Is that your fault? Same random logic.

I do believe the climate is changing. It always does.

I'm 59 years old. Since I've been alive, people have been told we're headed into a mini ice age twice and we're heading the other way three times. It's kind of like the ever-changing "The world is ending on (Insert whatever date you want here.)" After a while, it's just amusing.

 

[Radicchio]

Granted incremental climate change may not be very noticeable, even minuscule. It will not doubt take years of building on these adverse changes before many will even notice or even take it seriously. But each segment, built upon each generation, will eventually take its toll on our environment, and at that point some of the damage may be irreversible. I don’t think a planet like Venus would be very hospitable to human life.

 

[Paradoxum]

Someone did drown today. Is that your fault? Same random logic.

Yeah, that's not the same. I wasn't in a place where I could help anyone drowning, and that was the point. That you're in a place to help.

I do believe the climate is changing. It always does.

But not normally this fast, and because of human causes.

I'm 59 years old. Since I've been alive, people have been told we're headed into a mini ice age twice and we're heading the other way three times. It's kind of like the ever-changing "The world is ending on (Insert whatever date you want here.)" After a while, it's just amusing.

Current human caused climate change is science based. The world wont end, but people will die, and that isn't funny.

It's wrong to assume current claims are wrong because similar claims in the past were wrong. Previous claims didn't have the same evidence as current claims.

 

[Paradoxum]

Ugh tumblr is leaking again.

Me? I don't go on tumblr.

One its not like climate change is going to kill anyone any time or fast enough that there wont be fair warnings before you would drown. I mean seriously, go enjoy your life. Why is everyone so desperate to stop climate change yet as a country we cant even provide for our vets? Like priorities, seriously.

I don't mean rising seas will kill people. Drought and storms will kill people though, and in places where they can't escape.

I agree that war vets are important, and I have no idea why they would be looked after already, but climate change is way more damaging.

 

[Sophrosyne]

http://understandinguncertainty.org/more-deaths-due-climate-change-or-maybe-not

 

[Paradoxum]

If they are serious about stopping deaths - then de-populate the flood planes. NOLA should have been moved - at least the lower 9th ward - after Katrina.

Climate and environmental factors ALWAYS change. Rivers meander. Earthquakes re-write the landscape. Erosion happens.

We should never be so tied in to the status quo that a small (or great) change will be fatal to us.

Except that this time it is human caused, and so is happening faster than natural. Biological terrorism isn't okay because people naturally die of diseases. Climate change deaths aren't okay just because longer term climate change is natural.

 

[Sophrosyne]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...obal-warming-will-save-millions-of-lives.html

 

[AtWhatCost]

Yeah, that's not the same. I wasn't in a place where I could help anyone drowning, and that was the point. That you're in a place to help.



But not normally this fast, and because of human causes.



Current human caused climate change is science based. The world wont end, but people will die, and that isn't funny.

It's wrong to assume current claims are wrong because similar claims in the past were wrong. Previous claims didn't have the same evidence as current claims.

Most scientists don't believe in "Climate Change."

 

[Albion]

If people die from our purposeful lack of action on climate change, are we at least slightly morally responsible of murder for thousands?

No--no more than you are personally responsible for all who have been killed by illegal immigrants or in wars in which your country participated.

 

[Eryk]

First, I want to acknowledge that anthropogenic climate change is real. A scientific fact.

But I think that we're getting into the philosophical issue of our moral responsibility to people who don't exist yet. It's not as simple as rolling a boulder down a hill toward a town - you can see what will happen to people who exist in the present. But do we have moral obligations to people in the future? How can we have moral obligations to people who don't exist? Or do they exist? The answer depends on your beliefs about time.

Most physicists favor a tenseless theory of time: time simply is, and the past and the future are as real as the present. If this is true there is no denying that our moral obligations to people in the future are real.

 

[Albion]

Yeah, that's not the same. I wasn't in a place where I could help anyone drowning, and that was the point. That you're in a place to help.

Are we sure of that? If you see a drowning person and can swim, you might have a responsibility. But what are you, individually, capable of doing to prevent the seas from rising? Well, nothing. None of the tokens that make people feel good about themselves really can do that. And, what's more, we don't even know what to do. If Global Warming is real...and it's primarily man's doing...we still are not fully informed about what policies will work to slow it and which are theories that will turn out to be mistaken.

This is a little off-topic perhaps, but consider the matter of wind energy. Does it relieve some of the pressure for the use of dirty energy? Probably. But before you run out and put a giant windmill in your backyard, consider that hundreds of thousands of birds, including protected species, are killed in the blades annually. Consider also that the cost of such energy is much much more than the cost of fossil fuels. This falls upon the poor. So is the moral imperative to conserve animal species and the moral obligation to improving the lot of the poor suddenly of no importance? Do you have a moral obligation to avoid such alternative energy for this reason? And that's to say nothing about "visual pollution" that conservationists and environmentalists have been harping on for generations. Now they've gone silent because they have a different issue.

When it comes to moral responsibility, it really does take having the ability, as an individual, to make a difference--not a gesture. And not to engage in something unethical in order to accomplish something that's ethical.